


Dream Away the Cold

by Jinxed_Ink



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post-Canon, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5553353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxed_Ink/pseuds/Jinxed_Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I remember being fifteen and desperate again, longing for Snow and wishing I were longing for death instead.</p><p>I remember being eighteen, I remember a mad, wonderful boy walking into my house (and dragging in half the countryside) and setting my world on fire. I remember having, finally, something to fight for, instead of something to fight against. </p><p>“I didn’t like Christmas, growing up.” I say now, at nineteen, with Simon Snow pressed against me from ankle to shoulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream Away the Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katshrev](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katshrev/gifts).



I remember being three, and resting in the rug in front of the fire, my belly full, playing with my new toys. My mother singing Christmas carols in her low, smoky voice. Aunt Fiona laughing loudly at something my father said. It’s one of the most blissful memories I have, lovely and bright and warm. Also, I’m rather sure it never actually happened. But it gives me comfort. 

I remember being five and desperate, and I know this one’s real. A monster wrapped up in the skin of a little boy. I remember waiting and waiting for presents that never came. And I remember that I wasn’t surprised Santa wouldn’t come. I was very wicked, after all. Wasn’t I?

I remember being nine, a woman with a blue ribbon in her hair smiling gently down at me and saying: “You must be Baz, right? Your father has told me so much about you.” And I remember something in my chest twisting and twisting. To this day, I can’t tell if it was hope or dread. 

I remember being eleven, coming home from Watford for the very first time. I remember standing over my sister’s crib, and looking down at her tiny, scrunched up face, and marveling that something so tiny could be a person. 

I remember being fifteen and desperate again, longing for Snow and wishing I were longing for death instead.

I remember being eighteen, I remember a mad, wonderful boy walking into my house (and dragging in half the countryside) and setting my world on fire. I remember having ( _finally, finally, finally_ ) something to fight for, instead of something to fight against. 

“I didn’t like Christmas, growing up.” I say now, at nineteen, with Simon Snow pressed against me from ankle to shoulder. 

He sits up so quickly he almost knees me in the chest. “How can you not like Christmas?”

“I don’t know, Snow. Maybe it’s proof that vampires don’t have souls.” When in doubt, resort to sarcasm. 

“The Doctor Who marathons! The holiday music! The daft jumpers!”

“Now, don’t try to tell me Wellbelove ever wore one of those.”

“The food!”

“I’m astonished it took you so long to get there”, I say, deadpan, and he laughs.

“Seriously, though,” he says after a beat, “How can a child like you not like Christmas?”

 _Like what? Loved? Wanted?_ Some bitter, vicious part of me wants to ask. It’s the part of me that always goes for the lowest blow, the part that still isn’t used to not being on opposite sides on a battlefield. 

But I bite my tongue and pull Simon back into my arms. My next words are whispered in the spaces between us. “Christmas was my mother’s favorite holiday.” 

He turns in my arms, shifts a little down my body so that he can prop the point of his chin on my chest. He looks up at me expectantly and doesn’t say a thing. 

“Not that I ever knew that when she was alive, of course.” I continue, and I start stroking his head, carting my fingers through his hair. He angles his head just so, makes a pleased noise low in the back of his throat. 

Crowley, he’s practically purring. 

“You sound like a cat - planning on growing whiskers, too?” I ask him, aiming for coolly sarcastic and falling somewhere around hopelessly charmed. “Too bad they wouldn’t match your tail.”

He huffs out a breath against my neck. For a moment, all is quiet. Then - “Go on.” 

“About what, Snow? Your appartenance to the feline species?”

“‘Appartenance’, eh? That’s a big word.” Snow rolls his eyes. “I swear you’re becoming more of a pretentious tosser every single day.”

I don’t dignify that with a response - I stare up at the ceiling and stroke my hand lazily up and down Simon’s arm. His skin is hot under my fingers. His is Normal warmth now - not like _before_ , when he ran as hot as a furnace, and I feared (hoped) his every caress would set me on fire. 

Then he kicks my ankle and the peace of the moment is shattered. “Come on”, he says, “I don’t mean to push-.” 

His face is scrunched up, wrinkles forming on his brow, between his eyes, and I have the sudden urge to kiss them. I do. “You do nothing _but_ push.” I point out, my lips lingering over his skin.

He smiles, and ducks his head to press a kiss against my shoulder. “Only when I’m right.”

“Now you sound like Bunce.”

He makes a face. “Ugh. Don’t bring up Penny when we’re in bed.” 

We stay silent a moment more, before I cave. “Christmas is the moment when I feel her absence the most.” 

“Why?” Simon’s voice is barely audible, even for my enhanced hearing. He clears his throat and his next words are louder. “I mean, if you didn’t even know she loved it until after…?” He makes a gesture in the air.

“Her death?”

“Yeah”, Simon says quietly, “that.” 

“They talk about her constantly at Christmas. My father, that is. Fiona.” I crack a smile, somehow. “Even more so than normal.”

He snorts. “That’s saying something.” He curls his fingers around mine and strokes the inside of my wrist with his thumb, whisper-soft. And I know he understands. 

“It always felt so melancholy, even after my father remarried.”

Simon doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that. He just pulls me even closer, shifts us so I’m the one being held, and presses a kiss into my hair. We stay like that for a while, me leaning back against him, our hands still clasped tightly. Simon runs his free hand up and down my stomach, almost absent-mindedly, and I shiver. 

“I lost everything I had at Christmas”, he says suddenly. 

I roll my eyes. “Well, that’s dramatic.”

“Twat”, he says, and he sounds fond, of all things, “I didn’t make fun of you during _your_ heartfelt confession.”

“Sorry, Snow, you just make it so easy.” But I lean in and press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, to take the sting out of my words. When I move away, he follows me, until my head is pressed against the pillow and our lips are inches apart. His breath his hot against my mouth, and I shiver. 

He steals a kiss, the press of his lips against mine fleeting, there and gone in the space of a heartbeat. Then he steals another. And another. And another. Until I lose count. 

I grab onto the back of his neck and use the other hand to brace myself against the mattress, so that I’m sitting up, and I deepen the kiss. He wraps his arms around my waist, dragging me fully into his lap.

We sort of lose track of time, after that. 

Afterwards, I look up at him from the mussed sheets, smirking, and shake the contented fog off my brain. “So”, I say. “Heartfelt confession. Your turn.”

He blushes, looking away. “It’s just-”, he breaks off, rubbing the nape of his neck. “Last Christmas, I killed my mentor, I lost my magic. I almost destroyed the Magickal world.”

“And I thought _my_ sob story was depressing.”

“Can you shut up for five minutes?” He’s grinning, his eyes bright and unbearably fond. “What I wanted to say is, well, that I got you out of it. And that doesn’t make up for it, because nothing could. But it made things bearable, when nothing else could’ve.”

For once, I’m the one who is at loss for words. I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Simon…” 

And he smiles, cups my cheek with his hand and drags his thumb over my lips in a soft caress. “So in a way, you’re the best Christmas present I ever had.”

I know he’s trying to dispel the melancholic atmosphere, so I make an effort and burst out laughing. It comes out a little forced, but either Simon doesn’t notice or he pretends not to. “Crowley, Snow. That was incredibly cheesy. Even for you.”

“I was hoping you’d suggest I’d unwrap you.” 

I raise an eyebrow. “You do realize I’m already naked?”

“Oh.” He sounds so disgruntled that I just have to kiss him. I even manage to keep a straight face. For all of two minutes. 

“Oh, shut up”, he grouses, and pulls me back in.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Secret Santa gift for the lovely http://andimhopelesslyinlovewithhim.tumblr.com/ (also known as katshrev), I really had a blast writing this!
> 
> The working title for this fic was "let it Snow", because this fandom just begs for terrible puns.


End file.
